I’m competing with another blogger at a different location, because after an exhausting search on YouTube, I found this clip. I can’t believe my parents let me watch this awesome, awesome crap. I think “The Wrestler” got me thinking about where Brutus the Barber Beefcake, The Warrior, The Bushwackers, Macho Man, The Big Boss Man, Zeus, Million Dollar Man, Mr Perfect, The Mouth From the South Jimmy Heart, The Hitman, etc, etc, are now. A-Rod was using their dealer now for a few years wasn’t he, that’s for sure.
It must have been 1990, my dad took me to the Cow Palace in SF, pre-Sharks (if you live in the Bay, you know the Cow Palace, and you know the venue is not being used for much anymore but motorcycle conventions and over-the-top appliance clearance sales that last an entire weekend. Its not a hot-bed. And in 1990, it wasn’t happening either. But there, in my 9-year old mind, it was heaven. I was going to a weeknight WWF event. Have you ever been to one of those things? Basically, “The Wrestler” got it down 100% (Aronofsky must be commended for it). Grown men, throwing beer and profanities at refs prior to the fights (and they are fake refs, really low-level, D-League actors, poor guys), all the pomp, actors in costume and fully on the ‘roids throwing themselves around. There might have been a steel cage match, I can’t remember, and it was really low level WWF guys, too, not Hulk, Warrior, Andre the Giant (before having a posse). I think I got Bushwackers, maybe not, who cares.
When Monday Night Raw came around, and the primarily Saturday afternoon programming ended, the budgets got larger and we were left with Hulk going bad-guy, The Undertaker, The Rock, Stone Cold, basically a bunch of less talented actors who could not hold Macho’s jock. I sort of miss those days. Low-budget, bizarre, middle class entertainment. I loved it. Not sure my mom was too happy that pops was taking me to a wrestling event, but it was some of my most odd memories as a child. So, this memory kept me up about an hour last night, trying to piece together epic WWF battles……
And Jesse Ventura, the former Minnesota governor who has been used recently in anti-Obama conspiracy film, does the color commentary. Draw your conclusion. America….
